Long treated as figures of mythology, Amazon women were often confined to the realm of legend. In ancient Greek mythology, they were portrayed as frightening and “unnatural” figures who disrupted the male-dominated order and trespassed onto the battlefield. Yet as the veil of myth was lifted, it became clear that the Amazons were not merely products of imagination, but figures rooted in historical reality, emerging from the dusty layers of the past.
Excavations of graves belonging to the Scythian culture revealed arrows, bows, swords and horse gear in women’s burials, laying bare at this reality. Moreover, traces of arrow and sword wounds found on some skeletons showed that these women were not only symbolic warriors but active participants in warfare. The Scythians lived across a vast geography stretching from Central Asia to the southern Caucasus, and from north of the Black Sea to the lands of Ardahan-Göle, between the 8th and 3rd centuries BCE.
Greek mythology depicted the Amazons as “disruptors of order.” In the Greek worldview, war belonged to men; a woman bearing arms was seen as a threat to the social hierarchy. For this reason, Amazons were portrayed as cruel, savage and fearsome. Stories claiming that they cut off one of their breasts to shoot arrows more easily were also part of this othering. Such narratives were a mythological translation of fear directed at women’s participation in warfare.
A similar mindset took hold in the Middle East, where the development of women’s warrior skills was systematically suppressed. The Amazons’ secular character and the ululations (tililî) they raised during battle were not merely calls to arms but collective displays of power that inflicted psychological shock on the enemy. Through their warriorhood, the Amazons defended their lands and their people.
This historical line has re-emerged today in Rojava. Women who left their mark on the Rojava Revolution took on active roles not only on the battlefield but also in the construction of a democratic society. Women’s institutions were established, awareness-raising efforts were carried out, and women were redefined as social subjects. These gains became the greatest source of fear, particularly for jihadist mentalities. Within this worldview, being killed by a woman was believed to mean “not reaching paradise.” As in the case of the Amazons, women were seen as a force that disrupts the established order.
The rage directed at women within structures such as ISIS and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is not merely a contemporary form of hatred but the continuation of a historical fury. This anger is aimed at women’s defense of themselves, their land, and their society. The hostility displayed toward a woman’s body is not only about defeating an adversary; it reflects fear of women’s empowerment and of their discovery of their own collective strength. Displaying a woman’s braid as war booty, presented as an act of supposed heroism, is in reality the exposure of this fear.
As women’s gains in Rojava became increasingly visible, the uprising in Iran that rose with the slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” (Women, Life, Freedom) emerged as another link in this historical continuity. In the face of attacks on Rojava, the braid of hair turned into a symbol, crossing borders and reaching across continents. As Kurdish national solidarity grew stronger in this process, the braid took its place in the shared memory of women around the world as a symbol of resistance.
Each braid carries the story of women’s unity and solidarity. Hair is not merely a part of the body; it is memory, identity, and resistance. Just as the Amazons’ ululations have reached the present from within the realm of myth, women today are once again raising their voices in unison. History is repeating itself: women are defending themselves. Ululations now echo not only in one geography but in the ears of women across the world; they are seen, heard and recognized.
Rising like a sun, women’s nation-building cuts through the darkness, warming and illuminating not only the place where it emerges but the world as a whole.
The war that began in Aleppo under Turkey’s impositions was, for the Kurds, not merely a clash but a comprehensive assault aimed at erasing them from the political map and turning into a physical genocide. In response, the Kurdish people rose in resistance across the four parts of Kurdistan, wherever Kurds were present. In this way, a national spirit came to the fore. The solidarity shown by democratic, oppositional and resistant peoples demonstrated that this struggle was not waged in isolation.
The anger of ISIS toward women who played an effective role in the struggle against it ran much deeper. This fury was the desire for revenge of a defeated mentality. The torture inflicted on the bodies of women who resisted was not merely a practice of war but the expression of a historical hatred. In Rojava, identified with women’s revolution, the target was to extinguish the revolution as a symbol of freedom embodied in women.
In Rojava, women organized their self-defense and asserted themselves in political, social and military spheres. No dominant or reactionary mentality could accept this. ISIS therefore made taking revenge on this free will of women, which played a decisive role in its defeat, its central objective.
The image of a gang member triumphantly placing a severed lock of hair into his pocket was, in truth, the exposure of his own fear. The scene reflected on social media was not a photograph of power, but of defeat.
Amazon women are not a fairy tale. The land does not lie; the graves that are unearthed tell the truth. Women’s bodies buried with their weapons reveal the historical reality behind what has long been dismissed as myth. Just as the cutting of women’s hair today for practicing self-defense seeks to deliver the same message: “There is no place for you in self-defense.” It is an attempt to silence the ululations.
In the Middle East, cutting hair has at times been an expression of mourning and rebellion in response to the treacherous killing of a loved one, and at times a form of protest against injustice. Yet it has also long been used as a method of humiliating and punishing women, and even as a form of stoning. Today, the cutting of women’s hair is a stark expression of a mentality that denies women the right to self-defense: a warning meant to “set an example,” declaring, “No woman should take up arms again.”
Yet every woman who becomes conscious, regardless of race, religion or borders, is expressing her reaction against this violence. Heroism is not the cutting of a braid with a single snip of scissors; heroism is the resistance woven, strand by strand, in the heart. The attack on the braid is the expression of a defeat suffered in the face of women’s power.
Like a rising sun, women’s nation-building is warming not only one geography but the entire world. The Amazons’ ululation now echoes in other languages.